Don’t go near your water – there’s a monster lurking in your pipes!

It leaves nasty crud in your pipes, bubbles and hisses as it comes out of the faucet, and fills your house with noxious odors every time you turn on the faucet.Yes, you are living in the nightmare of hard, unfiltered water.Minerals and other nasty stuff in your water can make is smell and look like something out of a freak show.

Thank you for turning our muddy, sulfur, gassy, well water, into crystal clear water.

Dustin Miles via Facebook

Are you haunted by these sure signs that your home is harboring a water monster in your plumbing?

• Your water gives off seriously obnoxious odors that would put the most evil demon to shame.
• Your faucets bubble like a witches’ cauldron.
• You can actually light your water on fire.
• Your sink and fixtures are covered in gross blue-green ooze.
• There are rust stains that look like dripping blood all over your tub.
• The water from your shower turns your hair a sickening shade of green.
• Forget the tub, your water is the strangest shade of brown and you can actually see things floating in there!
• Every night after you take a bath you itch like someone put spiders in your bed.
• Your bathtub surround is covered in sickly yellow stains that appear out of nowhere, even after you scrub for hours.

If these sound familiar, you are plagued with the hard water monster.  Get help now!

Like it or not, winter’s on the way.  And if you’re a homeowner, that means it’s time to button up your home for winter.We thought we’d share the Energy Department’s top tips for you, but we’d like to add 2 more.

1. Have your water tested.  Even if you’ve done it before, do yourself and your family a favor and do it again. Water sources are subject to a great deal of change in a very short time, from pollutants to other contaminants.  We’re happy to come by and do one for you for free – just click here to set up your appointment today.
2. Save energy, your appliances and your pipes by installing a new water treatment system. No kidding.  Treating your hard water will save you money and a whole lot more – learn more here.

And without further ado, here’s the Energy Department’s top suggestions:  

Or… 

11 problems you probably never knew were a hard water issue.

Yup, hard water can wreak havoc on the home front. It’s enough to make you want to pull your hair out!Some of the problems are small and annoying; others are pretty major – but they all require attention, especially if you own your own home.Check out our list below. Anything sound familiar?  (Something probably will – about 85% of all households have hard water!)#1:  Your boiled beans stay hard as buckshot.  You want to make soup.  From scratch.  You boil that bag of dried 15-bean soup for hours, but the peas and beans are still like pebbles.  And it happens every time. You’re not a bad cook, and the beans aren’t bad – your water is probably hard.  Very hard, in fact.  The minerals in the water form a film on the skin that does not allow the beans to absorb the water molecules and properly hydrate. Your beans deserve better.  Better water, that is.#2:  The beautiful pickles you canned this summer are all shriveled like the mummies you see in books.  It’s not your fault.  It’s the water (probably).  Hard water can cause pickles to shrivel. And blanching your veggies before you freeze them (a necessary step) will result in tough, tasteless beans and peas if you use hard water in the process. Want better veggies?  Get rid of the hard water.  Unless you want something to blame your cooking skills on.#3:  Your hair looks so lifeless and lackluster you’re seriously considering getting a crew cut.  You wash your hair every day with a gentle, sulfate-free soap.  You baby it with the best conditioners.  And nothing makes a difference.  Your hair still looks like something out of a zombie movie. Hard water deposits wreak havoc on our hair.  Not only do the minerals get embedded into the surface of of the strands, they combine with your shampoo to make a solution that can be nearly impossible to remove completely from your hair. Get rid of the hard water and you jut might end up with model-perfect hair. Hey, it could happen!#4:  Your dishsoap just won’t lather, even when you dump the whole bottle into the bucket.  Did you know the term “hard water” is believed to have been coined as a term by the fact that it’s hard to get soap to lather in hard water?  In fact, the original test for hard water was to put a drop of soap in a beaker of water, shake it, and see if it lathered. They still do this experiment in science class. You’ve been testing every day.  Do you think you have hard water?#5:  You spend a good portion of the college fund on all natural, organic, non-irritating cleansers and your baby’s skin is still itchy, rashy and dry.  We have 3 words for you:  Hard water dermatitis.  Hard water is actually a known cause of “untreatable” dry skin.  The minerals stay on the skin and irritate sensitive skin.  They also make it very difficult to completely rinse cleansers from the skin, and lotions and creams may have a harder time sinking into the skin through the barrier of soap and mineral deposits.  And if you have eczema or psoriasis, hard water significantly increases the irritation and itchiness associated with these conditions (read more here and here). If you have any of these conditions, do yourself and the baby a favor and save the college fund.  The most efficient, cost-effective way to resolve these issues is to test your water and treat it to get rid of the irritants.  Pure and simple.

Think you have hard water issues at home?

You might want to give us a call at (518) 618-2072 to come by and check it out.  We’ll test your water and give you the right treatment for your problems every time.

Get your free test now

#6:  Your hair is green.  And it’s not even Halloween. Hard water deposits build up on your hair and can cause it to have a greenish tinge. Or turn it brassy and orange.  If you have hard water, ridding your hair of those deposits is a real challenge.  We’ve seen suggestions to use vinegar rinses (and smell like a salad), collect rainwater and filter it until it’s cleared of contaminants (Seriously?  Who has time for THAT?) or adding alum to leach out the minerals to a bucket of water in the shower then scooping the soft water from the top to rinse your hair (Now we’re just getting ridiculous!) Let us take care of getting rid of the minerals that are making your hair green with envy for all the people using soft water.#7:  Your home hair color came out the most startling shade of purple.  Yup. Same minerals, different result.  Hair color is a precise chemical process that gets seriously messed up by the minerals in hard water. Same for perms. Even if you have your hair professionally color-treated, the color likely won’t last or stay true to that salon shade for very long.#8:  Your $15 per pound coffee tastes like something scraped off the bottom of the oldest, dirtiest pot from the waiting room at your local mechanic shop. No, this is not Starbuck’s grand scheme to get you to come in and buy a cup from the cafe (Or maybe it is.  Hmmmm…..)  Nope, coffee tastes different made from hard water (read more here). Use better water, get better coffee.  Pure and simple.#9:  Your husband buys iced tea by the gallon because your home brew always comes out scummy and tastes awful. Ladies, it’s not your fault! Hard water causes most teas to taste bitter and and to form an “oily” scale on its surface as it cools.  In fact, in ancient times, the tea scholar Lu Yu said the best water for brewing tea came from the center of a swiftly moving mountain stream. (read more here).  The fact is, most specialty tea sellers recommend only brewing tea with spring water or conditioned water. We can’t get you the flowing stream, but we can get provide you with the purest and best water possible.  You’re on your own with the hub’s Stewarts’ tea addiction.#10:  Your white t-shirts are as dingy and gray as your grandma’s 20-year-old dishcloths in less than 2 months.  You wash them in hot water just like your mom taught you. You use bleach.  And the expensive detergent, for all the good it did you. They’re still dull and gray.  You’re even thinking about getting a new washing machine.  Or taking them down to the stream and beating them against a rock. Put your money on getting rid of the correct culprit – your hard water.  Until you get better water, you just won’t be able to get your clothes as clean as you’d like.  But you may need to replace your washer anyway, because….#11:  You’ve had to replace your hot water heater, dehumidifier and dishwasher about 5 times in the last 10 years. Not to mention the coffee maker. And the washing machine.  And what’s up with the electric bill? Hard water is really tough on electrical appliances that use water, especially the ones that heat the water.  Heat causes the minerals to come out of solution and adhere to nearby surfaces – like intake valves – in rock hard layers of mineral deposits. Eventually, the machines just give up.  In the meantime, your electric bill goes up as their efficiency drops.  It also causes serious damage to plumbing and pipes (read more here).  Yes, hard water will cost you a lot of real hard cash. If you have hard water, the only truly effective way to protect your pipes, appliances and pocketbook from damage is to get rid of the minerals in the water at the source with a home water conditioning system.If you’re suffering from hard water issues, we’re here to help.  Just call the Culligan Man (and Woman) at (518) 618-2072 and we’ll come right out and get you better water.  Pure and simple.Chris at Culligan

Drinking Water, that is.

What’s the easiest, cheapest way to improve your health?

Drink 1 or 2 glasses of purified water as soon as you wake up in the morning!

Yes, before your coffee, before you brush your teeth, before you get the morning paper.Why do it?  You’ve gone 8 hours without hydrating.  That’s never good for our bodies or our general health.  And it’s much easier for our bodies to absorb the water on an empty stomach.The Japanese have even made a practice of it known as water therapy.  It’s simple – drink 2 glasses of pure, room temperature water upon waking up. Then do your morning routine. Pure and simple.  (Note  too much water can be too much of a good thing, though, so limit your water intake to no more than 3 glasses at a time!)Heck, the Japanese think it can cure just about anything that ails you.  We won’t go that far, but as a readily available, healthy, free choice, why not try it today?

Support your healthy lifestyle.  

Get Better Water. Today.

Learn more

Drinking water probably isn’t a cure for cancer (although you might read that on the internet), but it does have some well-known benefits.  So, in short order:

Here are the top 3 (plus a bonus) benefits of drinking water before breakfast:

1. You’ll kick-start your brain. Your brain is 75% water, and it has just gone 8 hours without getting any.  Rehydrate those brain cells and watch your brain power soar!
2. You’ll have far more energy.   All day long.  Even slight dehydration saps us of our energy levels.  Starting out your day dehydrated leaves you playing catch up all day.  Start out right and get your hydration on!
3. You’ll get that  fresh from the spa glow. Unless you can drink the water from the fountain of youth, drinking water won’t turn back the aging clock.  But it will help improve rough dry skin, a common side-effect of even slight dehydration.  It’s like giving your skin a shower from the inside out!
4. You may even lose some weight! The jury is still out on the idea that pure water removes the toxins that cause weight gain (probably not, actually.)  However, nearly all dietitians recommend drinking more water as part of any weight loss program.  Why? Drinking a glass of water helps you to feel fuller, so you may eat less.  It helps rev up your metabolism (some say cold water does this better – but any temp water helps) and as a no-calorie drink, it hydrates without adding any extra empty calories to your diet.

Better water = better living.  Pure and simple.Bottoms up!Chris at Culligan     

It’s National Drink Beer Day – and in honor of the holiday, we’d love to take a moment to bring your attention to that pint glass of water you’re holding.

That beer you’re about to lift? It’s really just a little malt and hops in water. Actually, that glass is at least 95% water by volume.  And that water also supports the growth of the yeast that turn hops, barley, sugar and water into ale.Makes sense that the quality and flavor of your beer probably has more to do with the quality of your water than any other ingredient!In the past, breweries were located in areas with good water supplies.  And the water gave the beer its distinct flavor. Today’s craft beer market is much the same – each brewer, from large to small, depends heavily on the flavors of the water they use to make that beer.

“People have always thought about the water, because if you went back 100 years ago, when maybe you couldn’t do anything about the water — people put breweries where there were great water supplies,” brewmaster Garrett Oliver says. “The flavor of the beer would often be based upon the local water. And they would position the brewery in the right place to take advantage of that.”

~To Grow A Craft Beer Business, The Secret’s In The Water

Now that those breweries are expanding to meet a growing market, many have to recreate their recipes — starting with the water.There’s an art to combining flavors and refining a style.  But brewers also bring a certain scientific rigor to their beer-making.  That’s partly due to health concerns, like the need for sanitary conditions, says craft beer expert Julia Herz.  “It’s also tied to how water’s different qualities affect beer’s flavor — minerals, pH, that sort of thing.”This is also one case where completely pure water may not be best for getting the job done, either.  Yeast need some of the things filtration removes – like manganese, zinc, copper and iron – to survive and thrive.But brewers often do not understand the relationship of water flavor and mineral content on beer production.  For example, soft water with low mineral content and low carbonates is best for lager beers, according to www.maltingandbrewing.com.  Other beers require higher mineral levels for proper flavor. It is said that the hard water in Burton-On-Trent was ideal for pale ales while the soft water of Dublin made for great stout. And all stages of beer production require large amounts of water to produce a quality brew.This is where careful scientific testing of exactly what’s in the water becomes essential for recreating the brew’s flavor when manufactured from another water source.  You may not need to treat your water at all.  However, even a little chlorine will kill the yeast and the flavor will come through in the beer – something our water treatment systems can easily remove.

Better water makes better beer.  Pure and simple.

Until next time, Cheers!Chris at Culligan Scotia

Want a free water test – on us? Give us a buzz at: 518-618-2072 and we’ll be happy to come on by and see what’s in your water!